THE DREAMED TRIP 6 POINTS
(The Cyclades; France/Belgium/Greece, 2022)
Direction and script: Marc Fitoussi.
Duration: 110 minutes.
Performers: Laure Calamy, Olivia Côte, Kristin Scott Thomas, Alexandre Desrousseaux, Nicolas Bridet.
Released exclusively in movie theaters.
The French Marc Fitoussi is a specialist in popular comedies with the occasional authorial seasoningas clearly demonstrated The life of artists (2007), Detective Pauline (2012) and Copacabana (2010), in which he directed the queen of French cinema Isabelle Huppert and her daughter, Lolita Chammah. Her latest feature film, The dream tripis no exception to that rule, since it once again uses the tools of the conventional humor generated by the attraction and repulsion of opposites with the framework of a story of female (re)discovery during a trip to exotic lands, although largely avoiding the crudeness of sentimentality. The prologue introduces the protagonists during adolescence, two apparently inseparable friends who, however, could be defined as their perfect opposite. Expansive and hyperkinetic, Magalie (Laure Calamywinner of a César award for her performance in Vacation with you… and your wife) is the antithesis of the introspective and serious Blandine (Olivia Cote), although everything indicates that they get along very well, as if in some strange way they complemented each other.
Cut to the present. Something happened some time ago and the girls haven’t seen or spoken to each other for years.. Decades. Separated from her husband and with a son who has just left adolescence behind, Blandine goes through this new stage of life with an empty nest and the bed at her complete disposal. Because of these issues in the script, the boy sets up an unexpected date for his mother… with Magalie, who has not changed much since his youth (the truth is that neither has Blandine) and to whom, after a crazy dinner, his former friend hopes not to return. to see in a long time. But The dream trip They have their reason for being a vacation they both wanted to take in the good old daysa journey through the paradisiacal Greek islands, with special interest in Amorgós, the central filming location of Luc Besson’s classic Deep blue. And that’s where they both go, despite Blandine’s resentments, with maturity on their backs (not so much in Magalie’s case, at least in emotional terms), two people who couldn’t be more different and who, for that same reason , they will have to face stumbles, falls, conflicts and reconciliations.
It is Magalie’s unconsciousness, the lack of fear of the consequences of her actions, that ends up altering the original route, exchanging the suite of a luxury resort for the humble room of a small hostel on a remote islet. Fitoussi’s script includes revelations, new and old grudges, some possible love interest, an improvised dance scene and the meeting with a former English aristocrat turned Greek hippie (brief but intense role by Kristin Scott Thomas, showing off her perfect pronunciation of French). Nothing new under the sun – that of Greece or that of cinema –, although The dream tripthat seen with the pleasure of the occasional touristmanages to balance the benefits of the popular story with the clear and welcome intention of building characters a little more complex than the mere archetype.
